How to evaluate and improve your Job, Career, Training and Education

Self-evaluation and a proactive approach to career progression is key to professional development. In this article, we look at effective tips for getting ahead. 

Pexels – CC0 Licence

There are more important things that work, but there’s no avoiding the fact that it has a significant impact on your well-being, lifestyle, and overall life. In this competitive age, when more people than ever are battling for the top positions, professionals must take a proactive approach to their career management. In doing so, you’ll be more likely to achieve job satisfaction, gain promotion, and ultimately attract a higher salary and secure your financial future.

While there are factors beyond your control that will influence your career success, much of your professional future will depend on the self help steps that you take as an individual. These steps can also help with training, educational courses, and just about anything that requires mental labour. 

In this post, we’ll run through some of the most effective tips that future-focused professionals can take on board to enhance their development. Let’s take a look. 

Analyse Your Performance

You can’t figure out what you need to improve until you know where you are. Most people continually look forward and leave their previous performances in the past, but you can learn a lot from taking the time to perform a self-evaluation. 

In doing so, you can identify what you’re good at, what you’re not good at, and what you don’t do at all. It’s best to focus on the processes you use to complete tasks as well as the eventual outcome. You may ask yourself the following questions:

• What obstacles did you come up against, and how did you manage them?
• Could you competently manage all of your tasks, or did you struggle in certain areas?
• Did you have a ‘good enough’ mindset or did you strive to achieve excellence?
• Did the end result meet quality objectives or just productivity objectives?

This type of self-assessment won’t just highlight your ability to perform your role. It’ll also indicate your general approach to your position, be it as a worker or a student. 

Get Feedback

While it’s recommended to self-assess your skills and performance on an ongoing basis, remember that, unless you possess extreme self-awareness, there’ll be performance factors that you miss — or just cannot know. This is especially important for workers and students who must meet the objectives of an organisation, rather than simply their own objectives.

Feedback should be relatively easy to access. Asking a supervisor or tutor to provide an honest assessment of your performance, including areas that you should improve, can help provide a framework for your future. 

Remember that simply receiving feedback is not, in itself, valuable. It’s what you do with the feedback that counts. 

Assess your Attitude 

A large chunk of your success will depend on the quality of your work. But there’s another factor to keep in mind, too. Your attitude can be the difference between landing a job or just missing out, getting a promotion or staying stuck in your current position. 

Employers look at a variety of factors when deciding whether to offer a candidate a role or give them more authority within the organisation, including attitude. As part of your self-assessment, check your conduct. Are you arriving at work on time? Do you have a friendly demeanour? Do you show that you care about the organisation’s goals? All of these things can make a difference.

Your attitude really can make the difference between success and failure, regardless of what it is you’re trying to achieve. It’s much easier to complete a career-related course when you have a positive, can-do mindset, as this article from Harvard Business Review shows.

Set Goals

It’s rare that someone accidentally ends up in their dream career. It happens, but it’s rare. Most people who achieve their professional and educational goals do so because they have a clear map of how they are going to get there. 

While you’ll be busy with day-to-day responsibilities, it’s recommended to set some time aside to set and monitor your career goals. These goals will be specific to you but can follow a broad outline. Some goal-setting tips include:

• Research career possibilities within your industry and what’s required for those roles.
• Set short- and long-term goals. A short-term goal may include applying for a higher-education course that makes you eligible for more senior positions. A long-term goal may include enhancing your competency skills, such as commercial awareness.
• Use the SMARTER framework. This is:
  • Specific: Set clear goals.
  • Measurable: Your goals must be measurable.
  • Achievable: The goals must be within reach.
  • Realistic: Have a realistic understanding of your capabilities (i.e., how much time you can dedicate to your goals).
  • Timely: Set benchmarks for each step of your goal.
  • Empowering: Your goals should be entirely your own. 
  • Reviewable: Stay flexible and open to changing conditions, and adjust your goals as required.

Avoid Complacency

Complacency can be a death knell for career progress. While there’s some value in growing comfortable in a role, it’s best to avoid becoming too comfortable. All professionals experience a leap forward at the beginning stages of their working lives, but what separates the best workers is a continual strive for improvement.

Coasting is tempting but can stifle progress and prevent you from reaching your full potential. It can also impact your earning power. Studies have shown that new hires typically earn 7% more than people already employed by the organisation. 

Deciding the right time to leave an organisation can be tricky, but there are some telltale signs that it’s time to move on. Employees who see a new pathway to promotion and have learned all that they can within the role would be well advised to look at a new role in a different organisation, provided it’s a better position. 

Look After Yourself

Self care should form part of a well-rounded approach to a professional life. A significant number of people who engage in self help activities do so due to pressure and stress at work. The rate of burnout — a continual feeling of stress and exhaustion — is on the rise in the UK, with more than half of workers saying that work has become more stressful. 

Employees can make their lives easier by working for businesses that prioritise employee well-being, but that’s not always possible. As such, it’s important for workers to actively look after themselves to prevent overly high work-related stress levels. Having a work cutoff time, unwinding after work, and engaging in relaxing activities such as exercise, yoga, and meditation, can all help to keep stress levels in check. 

Stay up to Date With Your Field

Having a broader understanding of your industry, sector, or field can help to improve your career. In doing so, you’ll gain insights into the latest standards and practices within your area, as well as have a more thorough understanding of the general employment prospects. You can also learn about the emerging skills and technologies that you may need to possess or understand in the coming years. Subscribing to trade magazines, following thought leaders on social media, and attending relevant trade shows can all help. Speaking to your peers both internally and externally can also keep you up to date with things you may have missed. 

Final Thoughts

Others will help you along the way, but ultimately, the person who will influence your professional success is you. By spending some time analysing your current performance and setting pathways for progression, you can help enhance your skill set and future-proof your career, ensuring that you’re in the best position possible to adapt to changing requirements. 

Summary

Staying ahead in your career can be difficult, but there are specific steps you can take to help yourself step ahead of the competition. By taking control of your career management, you can avoid many of the pitfalls that hold other professionals back and achieve career success and professional satisfaction.

In an age that’s more competitive than ever before, it’s essential that workers take the front foot to all components of their working lives, including setting short- and long-term goals, reviewing their performance, getting feedback from supervisors, and investing in self care. In doing so, employees can put themselves in the best possible position to take advantage of the career opportunities that will naturally come their way. 

The most successful professionals avoid complacency and make lifelong learning a core tenet of their professional conduct. Having an awareness of the industry in which you work and forming part of a broader network of professionals can have a significant impact on career progression.

Ultimately, while there are external factors — such as the economic climate and technological disruption — that can influence career success, an individual’s prospects largely come down to their own actions. By setting clear goals and making your career a priority, all the while maintaining a balance between your professional and personal lives, you can ensure that your success is in your own hands. 

To learn more about how you can evaluate and improve your career, job, training, and education, be sure to check out our informative guide at the Life Advice Guide blog.